“Look, calm down. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had … strike that, closest thing to family I’ve ever had, so I am going.” She cocked her head to the side. “Got it? And when I’m done here, we’ll call a driver to take us wherever we want. I’ll leave Niurka a note so she doesn’t worry when she gets back from her errands.”
I plopped down beside her, grateful for the help but feeling guilty about wanting it. “Okay.” I gave her a little nudge. “Thanks.” My mind went back to my father. “Aren’t they taking a really long time? Maybe you should hang up and call again.”
Simone shook her head and raised a finger. “Che?” Simone asked in her disguised voice. “Mio nome?” She bit her lip and looked at me. I shrugged.
“Signora Flemming,” Simone continued with a smile.
Immediately, I shook my head and mouthed, “Nooo!”
But it was too late. Simone was on a roll.
“Della accademia,” she finished saying. Another pause. “Grazie.”
She covered the phone with her hand. “What?”
“You should’ve used a fake name.”
Simone pursed her lips together before lifting the phone back to her ear. “Well, I didn’t say what school I was from. Plus, it’s too late now.”
“I guess.”
The hospital seemed to take forever to get back to Simone. I hoped it wasn’t because there was bad news. I paced around the room a few times and peered out the second-floor window to check for the motorcyclist. The only odd person out there was a man in a dark suit sitting on a bench across the street. He looked out of place, although I couldn’t figure out why.
I picked up Simone’s camera and zoomed in on the guy’s face. A crooked nose and hardened stare gave him the look of a boxer. But what set him apart was the fact that he was missing a large part of his left ear. He turned his head just as I snapped a photo, but I was able to get enough to show Simone.
“You ever see this guy before?” I asked.
“No, but don’t worry,” Simone said, trying to relieve the concern that was obviously written across my face. “We’re perfectly safe in here. My mother bought this place from an ambassador or some sort of diplomat. It’s built like a fortress. Anyway, the guy is probably just waiting for a ride or something.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Trust me, my mother is a freak about security. We’re fine here.”
“I’m going to have to meet your mom one of these days.” As soon as I said the words, I wanted to kick myself. I knew better than to bring up her mother.
“Yeah, if she ever spends more than five hours in the same city as me.”
As much as Simone pretended to sympathize with all my complaining about my dad’s overprotective, hawklike treatment, I knew she secretly craved some of it.
Thinking of my father, I opened my bag and took out the yellow envelope, my fingers lingering on the smeared blood. I pulled out the two passports and flipped the first one open. There I saw my picture, but not my name. Instead, it said I was Mia Sanchez. The other had my father’s picture with the fake name of Alberto Sanchez.
I put both passports in my messenger bag, and then took out the two books that were still in the envelope. The first one was dark blue with gold etching and looked relatively new, while the other one had a worn leather-bound cover. I put the blue notebook inside my bag to read later and focused on the old one. The handwriting inside was unfamiliar and difficult to read, and the words seemed to be Latin, but, on the second page, one word leapt out at me:
Hastati.
The secret group my dad had said wanted me dead.
I tried to understand the sentence, but besides me not being able to read Latin, most of it was smudged and illegible. I walked over to the window and held the notebook at an angle, trying to see the words in a better light. The sun hovered just above the roofline of the building across the street.
I glanced out the window one more time and noticed the half-eared guy was gone. I’d been worried for nothing. I flipped through the notebook again and paused on a random page where one sentence seemed to be written in dozens of languages. I could read the ones in English, Spanish, and Italian, and they all said the same thing.
The Guardian will be bound for life once the spearhead is used.
“No, no, signora.” Simone raised her voice. “Per favore.”
I looked back at Simone.
“Guardare di nuovo,” Simone pleaded. “Felipe Arroyo.” She repeated the name, spelling it out for them.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
I put the notebook down on the bed and got closer to Simone.
“Un momento.” Simone covered the phone with her hand and whispered, “Does he go by any other name?”
“No.” I swallowed the lump forming in the back of my throat. The sunshine coming in through the window, which had felt warm and inviting, was now hot and suffocating. “Why?”
“The stupid receptionist is saying that she doesn’t find that name in her system.”
Could my dad have used the name that was on the fake passport? “Have her try the name Alberto Sanchez.”
Simone nodded, returning to the phone conversation. “Forse il—”
A loud pop behind me drowned out her last words. I spun around to see the window splinter. Cracks ran across it like the threads of a spiderweb, but it held together. Within a second, something else hit the glass.
“Get down!” I yelled, pushing Simone to the floor.
Simone cursed at the top of her lungs.
I scrambled out of the bedroom as the bulletproof glass was pelted with more shots. Simone ran past me and dove under a small wooden coffee table in the middle of the upstairs sitting room.
“That’s not going to help!” I yelled.
She crawled back out and flashed me a key that had been taped to the underside of the table. “I know! We need to go!” she exclaimed.
My thoughts flashed to the movies I’d seen where the super rich had places they could hide in case of an attack. “A safe room?”
“Better,” she answered, racing down the hallway. “A way out!”
She opened a closet and tossed aside a couple of fur coats, revealing a small door. Unlocking it with the key, she pushed it open. “C’mon … hurry!” she called, hunching down and carefully stepping through to the other side.
I followed, closing both the closet and the secret door behind me. Immediately, I was engulfed in darkness, with the only light coming from Simone’s cell phone a few feet below. The secret door led to a narrow shaft with metal rungs leading all the way down.
After climbing down at least ten feet, I still couldn’t see the bottom. “Where does this thing go?” I whispered, afraid that someone entering the apartment might hear us.
“Erghf bulaks,” Simone incoherently answered, the cell phone in her mouth lighting the area below as she held on to the side rails and lowered herself onto the next rung.
After fifty or sixty feet, we finally hit dank, but solid, ground. Simone, her phone in her hand again, swung it from side to side, lighting up the area. Rats and roaches skittered by our feet.
“Ughhhh!” Simone hopped from leg to leg to avoid them as they took refuge from the light.
We were in a dirty cavern and, besides the shaft above us, the only way out seemed to be a wide tunnel with a cobblestoned floor that stretched into more darkness.
“The notebook!” I shouted with the sudden realization of what I’d done. I could picture the old leather journal sitting on Simone’s bed. “I left it in your room! We have to get it!” I put my hand back on one of the metal rungs and started climbing up.
“Are you crazy?” Simone pulled me down by my pants. “You can’t go there now.”
“But I think it was important. My father gave it to me and … and—” I felt like I was going to be sick.
“And nothing. We have to keep moving.”
I knew she was right, but I couldn’t leave one of the biggest clu
es to whatever was happening just lying on Simone’s bed.
“Listen, once we get to Brother Gregorio’s we’ll find a way to get it back. When the coast is clear,” Simone suggested. “Okay?”
I nodded and touched my bag, making sure that the other notebook was still in there.
“I’m really sorry about all of this, Simone. I don’t even know how they found me.” I paused, fighting tears of guilt and helplessness. “You should probably get far away from me.”
“No way.” Simone aimed the phone’s flashlight into the blackness. “Plus, who’s to say these people won’t come after me anyway? If they’re at my house, then they already know I’m involved. We’re sticking together until we figure some things out.” She pointed to the tunnel. “We need to go.”
She grabbed my hand and we ran side by side, the bottom of my jeans getting splashed with the putrid water that puddled in between the gaps of the cobblestones. It felt like we’d run at least half a mile when Simone abruptly stopped.
I jumped as a couple of squeaking rats ran in between my legs. “What?”
Simone shined the light on the stone wall up ahead. We’d reached the end.
“We’re here,” she said.
“But it’s a dead end.” I walked forward and knocked on the solid rock, my pulse quickening. “And I didn’t see any doors along the way.”
Simone came and stood right next to me. A high-pitched screech filled the tunnel as she pushed on a few of the concrete blocks that lined the sides.
A grin that would make the Cheshire cat jealous spread across her face. “Who said anything about a door you can see?”
There were about ten large cement blocks held in place by a hinge, so when Simone pushed hard enough, they swiveled inward to reveal a small room. Actually, it was more of a closet, with a dusty mop and empty bucket in one corner and gray metal flooring that had begun to rust.
As we stepped inside, the ground beneath us began to tremble and shake. “Where are we?” I asked.
Simone fumbled with the key she’d taken from her house and tried to open the door that was on the other side of the room. “Spanish Steps … well, somewhere under the Spanish Steps. In the metro tunnel.” She pulled open the door as a subway car rushed past, the wind knocking her back into me.
Cautiously, Simone stepped onto a narrow ledge that ran along the tracks. I followed her out, hugging the wall in case another train approached.
“So which way do you think we should go?” Simone asked as I closed the door behind me. It was plastered with fake warnings that there was no entry due to high voltage.
“Me? How would I know? I thought this was your escape plan.” I glanced up and down the tunnel.
“Um, hello? I was nine when my mother bought the place. She forced me down here with the rats and roaches, because she said if I chose to live in Rome I needed to know how to save myself.” Simone shook her head. “Who does that to a kid? Made me think twice about leaving Praiano.”
“Sorry.” It was all I could think to say. “I’m glad you came here, though.”
Simone sighed. “Yeah, me too. Wouldn’t have had the chance to become friends with you if I kept living in that little town.”
“Um, considering what’s going on with me now,” I said with a smile, “you might want to rethink that.”
“Hm.” Simone held out her hands as if weighing her options. “Hanging out with a bunch of servants, in a fortress of a house, without ever having the chance to make any real friends versus living in a big city full of people, fashion, and excitement.” She gave me a nudge. “Yeah, not a tough choice.”
“I guess.” It was the most Simone had ever talked to me about her life before moving to Rome.
I noticed that the tunnel had now grown quiet and stopped vibrating, but it was only a matter of time before another train passed dangerously close to us. “Let’s go that way.” I pointed to the left. “I think the train we saw was picking up speed, so the platform is probably in that direction. Worst case we’ll double back if I’m wrong.”
“Worst case we get hit by a train,” Simone said with a smirk.
We inched along the ledge, around a big curve, and in less than a minute the platform widened and we saw several people standing on the Spagna Station platform, waiting for the next train. At first I was worried that someone would question two girls popping out of the tunnel, but the waiting crowd was either oblivious or too jaded to care.
Without saying another word, Simone and I mixed in with a group of women standing under a sign showing that there were two minutes until the next train. We scooted back, closer to the wall, keeping an eye on everyone around us. I couldn’t help thinking about my father’s warning: Anyone could be a threat.
From behind me, a tanned, wrinkled hand touched my shoulder, causing me to jump.
“Just a coin or two,” said an old, haggard woman, stretching open her palm while leaning against a mangled cane. “For my family,” she added in heavily accented English.
I thought of my family … my dad. Was he alive? Was he in pain?
“Vattene!” Simone shooed the old woman away before I could even say anything.
The old woman sneered. “Remember, the choices we make determine our destiny,” she said ominously before turning toward another couple on the platform.
Simone ignored her and took a couple of steps forward. The crowd had started to move closer to the yellow safety line painted on the floor as the light from an approaching train lit up the underground station.
My eyes stayed on the old woman. There were homeless people and gypsies everywhere in Rome, but something was different about this woman and it wasn’t only the fact that she spoke to me in English. She slowly turned back around and our eyes locked. Neither of us blinked, each studying the other, until the corners of her lips began to curl up and she gave me a smile that showed her rotting teeth.
The rumbling of the subway cars and howling of the brakes filled the station.
“Cassie!” Simone called out to me as the crowd pressed her forward.
“The choices we make determine our destiny!” the old woman shouted.
I stood transfixed. Behind me the doors of the subway cars exhaled as they opened to allow throngs of passengers in and out.
“Cassie!” Simone grabbed my hand. “We’ve got to go.” She pulled me away and we quickly maneuvered our way around several people until we boarded the second subway car.
“Colosseum, that’s where you said we had to go, right?” Simone asked, grabbing hold of the car’s center pole.
“Mm-hm.” I took the window seat next to her and pulled out the map I’d printed at Simone’s apartment. “This was the only Monasterio San Carlo I could find.” I looked at the subway map plastered above the doors and compared it with the map I held in my hand. “I think we get off at Vittorio Emanuele Station without changing trains.”
Simone took a deep breath. “Good,” she muttered.
I leaned my head against the window. It was strange, but I felt safer in the crowd because we looked like just two average girls on a subway. Now that I was able to settle down, my thoughts drifted to what I’d say to Brother Gregorio. I had so many questions, but they all boiled down to two things: Where was my dad? And why were people after me?
The train lurched forward and slowly pulled away from the station. I looked out at the terminal. People had filtered down the stairs, filling the void we’d left. It was business as usual, nothing but a typical Thursday afternoon in Rome. At least for most people.
In the corner of the subway platform, I spotted the old woman asking a businessman for money. Her words still rang in my head.
Choices determine destiny.
It was similar to something my dad used to tell me when I was little. He’d remind me of how my mother would always say that the beauty of life was its uncertainty. How you could choose your own future and nothing was preordained.
It had never been more true.
I ha
d to choose to be brave.
The feeling of being someone’s prey was beginning to take its toll. I evaluated everyone around me. The couple holding hands boarding the subway car, the police officer crossing the street right by the station’s exit, the tour group being led by a woman wearing a big hat, even the old man feeding the pigeons … they were all potential assassins.
“This way.” Simone pointed to her right without looking up from the GPS map on her phone.
We rounded the corner, stepping into the shadows of the buildings around us. The sun was so low that the only rays of sunlight were at the intersections.
“I really don’t think you should keep using your phone,” I said, thinking back to how mine had been thrown out of the car. “They might be able to track us.”
Simone ignored me and crossed the street, her blonde hair flashing as she stepped in—and then out—of the sunlight. “They don’t know my number and we don’t even know who they are.” She glanced down at her phone one more time. “Plus, I had to try to reach my mom … not that she ever picks up for me. But it doesn’t matter,” she said, shutting off the phone. “We’re here.”
I stared at the nondescript building with the green door. The windows had lattice-style ironwork covering the openings, and they seemed to be boarded up from the inside. Other than a relief above the door that showed an ornate cross being held on either side by an angel, nothing about the building looked particularly religious. But the bronze plaque above the doorbell had the number twenty-four on it. This had to be the place.
“Someone better be home,” I muttered, pressing the buzzer while keeping an eye on the desolate street.
Nothing.
I knocked on the door and held the buzzer down for a full three seconds. “Hello?” I shouted. “Anyone there?”
“Maybe we should keep moving,” Simone suggested, her back up against the building’s wall.
“No. Brother Gregorio’s here.” I paused, knowing that there was no plan B. “He has to be.”
I pounded the door with the side of my fist until it hurt. Just as I was about to start with a barrage of kicks, there was a clank on the other side. Simone and I stood still. We could hear two more locks being undone, followed by the screeching sound of metal being dragged.
Moving Target Page 3